The End of the Road (Warriors 97, Sixers 104)

It’s been a long time since the Warriors had meaningful games in March. This team looks like they don’t know what to do with them. While the first 60 games of this season largely have been a revelation, the Warriors are only now entering the stretch of basketball that separates the real threats from the happy-to-be-here fodder. The final six weeks of the NBA season present not just a challenge of endurance, but of adaptation. Opponents now have hours of tape to break down, allowing them to isolate all your weaknesses and find ways to exploit them. The extra energy that might have helped cover mistakes earlier in the season long ago dissipated. All you’re left with is talent, the ability to execute and the creativity to find new ways to win. The Warriors still have the talent to be a playoff team, but the next six weeks will test whether they have the discipline and savvy to get to (and stay in) the postseason.

The Warriors team that lost to the Sixers Saturday night looked physically tired, emotionally flat and ready to board a flight back to the Bay Area. They won’t have to worry about another extended road trip for the remainder of the season, but losing the last four games of this trip was hardly how they wanted to conclude one of the final big tests of the regular season. Winning on the road takes focus and mistake-free execution. This road trip was the sloppiest basketball we’ve seen all year, at both ends of the court. January’s disastrous trip may have had bigger blowouts, but these losses are more worrisome given how things seem to be unraveling. The defense just keeps getting softer and the offense more stagnant, all against weaker and weaker opponents. This team is still capable of playing inspired basketball — the San Antonio win, for example — they’re just doing it less and less frequently.

The Warriors’ devolution was on full display during the 97-104 loss to a broken-down Sixers team. Despite building a 16-point lead in the first half and a 10-point lead in the third quarter, the Warriors’ defense gave it all away in brutally quick runs. Despite another hot-shooting game from Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson’s best scoring night in weeks, the offense sputtered when it mattered most — in an anemic 16-point, 30% shooting fourth quarter. What was most discouraging was how the team, when confronted in the final minutes with letting an important and completely winnable game slip away, reverted to their worst habits. Unforced errors, quick jump shots and matador defense. As impressive and new as the Warriors have looked for stretches this season, there’s still that mediocre lottery team lurking somewhere inside them.

Everyone deserves some of the blame:

Jarrett Jack — He was at the center of what was right with the Warriors earlier in the year, so it only makes sense that he’s also in the middle of their current disaster. Jack hasn’t been able to hit a shot since his heroic game against San Antonio. While a pure scorer like Thompson might try to shoot himself out of that slump, there’s no reason for Jack — who shines as a facilitator — to feel that he has to dial back in his jump shot by taking eight of them in the fourth quarter (more than anyone else on the team, and one less than Curry and Thompson combined for the quarter). Adding insult to injury, Jack’s care with the ball and defensive focus seems to have departed with his jump shot. He’s been mistake prone at both ends of the court. Rather than trying to work his way back into the flow by setting up his teammates, he’s been trying to do it by forcing this issue himself. Given what a stabilizing force he has been for this team, his struggles are the equivalent of a blown lay-up that the other team turns into a three pointer.

David Lee — I’d nominate Lee’s 40 minutes Saturday as one of his all-time empty stat lines. He flirted with a triple double, but all I can remember from his second half play are Sixers blowing by him for easy points in the lane. His banged-up shoulder may have impacted his offensive play, but there’s no excuse for the defense. Grabbing 16 rebounds is far less meaningful when Thaddeus Young gets the same number against you. I worry what a decently coached team will be able to do against David Lee over the course of a playoff series. There’s no way to know, since Lee’s never been there yet, but his errors on defense are so predictable that a Popovich or Karl should be able to draw him into them at will. He loses guys on the weak side cheating for rebounding position. He’s slow to rotate into the lane against penetration, if he rotates at all. Against a spread four, he rarely challenges shots. At his best, Lee does a ton of important things for this team. I just worry that the incompleteness in his game will only become a bigger issue as the quality of opponent and intensity of competition improves.

Carl Landry — Like Jack, Landry was a stabilizing veteran presence for this team. But also like Jack, he’s had uncharacteristic struggles during the recent stretch. Close-range looks that were automatic in November now repeatedly rim out. His rebounding numbers have dropped practically every month of the season. Paired with Lee on defense, the Warriors’ key becomes a red carpet extended for easy baskets. Whether it’s late-season fatigue or teams recognizing how best to limit his effectiveness (don’t let him set up within a step of the paint; watch him on the backdoor whenever there’s guard penetration), he simply hasn’t been the same spark-plug off the bench. In games like this, where the team struggles to score in the fourth quarter, his absent contributions might be the thin difference between a defeat and a win.

Harrison Barnes — Inconsistency is part of rookie life, but that doesn’t make Barnes’ ups and downs any less infuriating. He can start off the game with spectacular penetration, then go nearly 5 minutes without registering a single shot, point, rebound or assist, as he did at the end of the third and start of the fourth. Barnes is still one of the wild cards for this team in the final quarter of the season. If he puts it together 60 games into his NBA career and plays with consistency, he could be a huge boost during the playoff push. But right now, it still looks as if it’s lottery odds on whether the Warriors’ lottery pick will assert himself during any given run.

Klay Thompson — As Curry rightfully starts attracting a double team around the NBA, no one stands to benefit more than Thompson. He did some damage against the Sixers when the defense flocked to Curry, hitting an impressive 7-12 from behind the arc. But Thompson’s scoring was the only area where he made a positive impact on the game. He had a few brutal turnovers in the third quarter and repeatedly failed to close out on Philly shooters in the fourth. There are some encouraging signs that he’s correcting some deficiencies in this game — particularly with his increased penetration recently — but he needs to be more than just a scorer for the Warriors to reach their full potential.

Stephen Curry — If anyone gets a pass in this game (other than Ezeli, who put together a workmanlike twenty-minute stretch of physical defense), it’s Curry. He shot the ball well, and likely could have shot even better had the ball not stayed out of his hands for extended stretches when he seemed extremely hot. Despite the increasingly stagnant offense for the Warriors, he pushed the ball for some easy break points and probed the defense in the half court to open up scoring space. His defense and decision making were solid for most of the night, although they seemed to fall apart a bit late in the game when the Sixers let Holiday defend him and go at him. Big picture, Curry could easily view these games where his teammates struggle as invitations to shoot 30 times. He’s not, to his credit, and still working hard to get others engaged while securing his own points. Curry seems to have elevated his game for the crucial final quarter of the season. Too bad none of his teammates have followed his lead, as of yet.

Draymond Green and Richard Jefferson — The Warriors’ role players were one of their secret weapons when things were going well. Green and Jefferson were usually shots of energy and hustle at both ends of the court. While they’re still active, they seem to have been spinning their wheels recently. No game typifies this more than Saturday night’s where they logged a combined 12 minutes and had nothing to show for it but 2 missed shots and a foul by Green. Their disappearance has led Jackson to tighten his rotation, which is far from a good thing given how the effort and focus of the major-minute guys has suffered recently in late-game situations.

Mark Jackson — With all the late post-season runs Jackson made as a player, he knows what endurance it takes to be a winning team both in November and April. The Warriors were getting by earlier this year on a lot of energy and hustle. As fatigue has set in, they’re getting exposed more and more for not making the extra run-out on defense or for spending far too much of the shot clock standing around watching Curry or Jack go to work. Jackson pushed his guys non-stop early to get as many wins as possible. They may be able to use that cushion to coast into the playoffs on fumes, but it’ll likely lead to a very short post-season run. These final twenty-plus games, to be played largely in the friendly confines of the Arena, seem like the perfect time to expand the rotation rather than contract it. Guys like Bazemore and Biedrins have been among the Warriors’ most energetic players of late. They might be able to bring back some of the spark this team seems to have lost. Green and Jefferson, despite their awful night, can bring important traits if used with the right mix of players. Rather than simply dump five bench players on the floor together, as Jackson tends to do nearly every game, it might help smooth the team’s performance to integrate them more with the starters. Jackson has proven himself to be a top motivator. The final stretch of the season will be his toughest test yet.

Since February 5, the Warriors are 3-10. 10 of those games were on the road, account for 9 of the total losses. That’s encouraging news as the team returns home, since it suggests they may be able to bounce back on their own court. But it’s discouraging news in the big picture, because it means this team has lost the toughness and focus needed to win on the road. Since home court advantage in the playoffs is a long-shot at best, the recent road difficulties suggest that this team’s visit to the post-season may be a very brief one.